VY 7298 Bilbao - London Gatwick
24 Sep 2026
18:10 - 19:00

I had flown in from Heathrow 2 days earlier but because the return flight back was fairly early, I decided to fly to Gatwick instead, which had more flights and a later dinner-time departure so I can do a bit more sightseeing in Bilbao.

From near the Guggenheim, the A3247 bus took less than 15 minutes to reach the airport. With a Barika card, the fare was dirt cheap, but unlike the other red city buses, remember to both tap in and tap off so the correct zone fare is charged.

The terminal building screams a Santiago Calatrava design with the soaring arches. I spotted the yellow Vueling counters right away, which had a small line of customers waiting to be processed. Similar to my London inbound, I had checked in successfully online the day before and the system allocated a window seat upfront already. But I wanted a paper boarding pass to add to my collection, so with over 2 hours to go before departure, I decided to line up at a counter to get one.

Like in London Heathrow Terminal 4, this terminal doesn't have any computer kiosks to print boarding passes so I would need to interact with a human today.

I suspect ground staff here don't handle visitors from outside Europe often. The agent had asked me about the UK ETA, but since I'm already living in the UK, I showed her my e-visa. She was actually looking for it in my passport but I intervened with the electronic visa quickly. It seems she couldn't get the computer to print the boarding pass and had to call for help. With someone on the line, she asked me to generate a share code to demonstrate my status, and I heard her reciting the share code in Spanish on the phone a few times.

All this took quite some time but since I got to the airport very early, I didn't need to rush after getting my coveted paper boarding pass, which was in good quality paper and also in colour.

For my previous BA flights this year, the outports were able to scan my passport to do the visa check, and I was never asked for a share code. I guess Vueling's systems don't connect to the UK government for this.

Security didn't take long but they still use the old style machines where computers need to be taken out for screening.

Emerging into a shopping mall air-side, I browsed around looking for more localized souvenirs, which include canned foods and fancy ham. The departure boards haven't shown my gate yet and had a countdown clock showing when the surprise will be unveiled.

That clock showed the gate should show around 5:30pm, which is cutting close to the departure time of 6:10pm and we all need to go through EES and passport control as well. Well, there isn't much I can do about this but to rush if push comes to shove.

So it is time to look for dinner. There are a few restaurant options air-side but the terminal was crowded and most restaurants were quite busy. I managed to find a Basque salad, which has tuna, and squeezed my way to the benches to enjoy dinner.

This small airport is a long building with not many gates but spotting is decent with a good variety of airlines.

Shortly after I finished eating, the flight's gate popped up. The D section is down a few flights of stairs and are bus gates. EU border control is just before the seating area and a large crowd was already snaking out of the manual counters.

Eventually, one staff tried to send non-EU passport holders to the e-gates which are typically reserved for EU citizens. Since I had registered for EES multiple times in recent months, I thought it should work for me but the machine coughed up an error. Disappointed, I headed back to the glob of people for the manual counter but the agent monitoring the e-gates came out of his cubicle and called me back to try again. The gate opened this time but flashed a message to see the counter, but that same agent waved me through.

From here, there are many seats and I looked out the large windows to check out the activity. There was a steady stream of arrivals and departures here but nothing too overwhelming.

With a backpack only for this quick 2-night getaway, I didn't have to worry about passing the luggage rack test. Staff didn't force anyone through this today either.

I didn't hear any boarding announcements but saw a wheelchair user being taken out and turned around to see they've started to board. Groups 2 and 3 have separate lines but are adjacent to each other so it was hard to see which was which. We were gathered up onto buses and it was just a short ride to the plane parked on the apron. 2 sets of stairs were already set up and I went for the front stairs.

Boarding finished on-time at 6:03pm and there was an announcement that someone has a severe nuts allergy on board. I heard the same thing on the inbound 2 days ago so it is either a standard announcement or someone decided to do a short trip just like me on the same days. What are the odds?

Today's plane didn't need to be pushed back. 9 minutes after boarding was complete, it moved forward and then turned right to taxi away. This is a small airport so everthing happened quickly. Soon, we were in the air heading northwest at 6:17pm. Unfortunately, I couldn't spot the city with my right window, but I was able to see the beautiful coastline with the light behind me.

While we were flying above the sea, the crew came by with paid service while I explored the wifi connectivity. There is some entertainment you can watch on the wifi, with 15 minutes of free use offered after watching an ad. There is also a pass for the whole flight.

There is even a good moving map and further details on speed, heading, and remaining flight time.

The literature available included a very wordy safety card for the A320 and a long menu should you want to do some dining and shopping.

In my seat pocket are the safety chart and duty-free menu, which was quite extensive although I wonder how many items are stocked physically on the plane should you decide to buy something?

The windows on today's flight were quite scratched up so it was difficult to focus my camera. We passed through northwestern France before crossing the English Channel.

I felt the descent start at around 6:15pm as we were crossing the Channel. The flight deck had announced a hold of about 5 minutes but we would land early. We made a huge loop between Gatwick and Brighton but there wasn't much interesting to see out the window. The approach into Heathrow is far more scenic.

We landed at 6:52pm for an on-time arrival.

I haven't been back in Gatwick for a few years, but have noticed it has turned into another Stansted - a low-cost airline hub. We were let off 5 rows at a time again.

We parked quite close to immigration and there was only a short line for the manual counter. However, staffing was very sparse so it did take some time to get to it. But nevertheless, with only a backpack today, I was out and at the train station for the Thameslink train quite quickly, about 40 minutes after landing.

This Vueling roundtrip was quite nice and uneventful. I'll put them on my radar for an outing from now on. They fly to quite a lot of destinations from Gatwick and Heathrow, not just Spanish cities.